


An Impossible Thing

by Tabithian



Series: Light the Path [33]
Category: Batman (Comics), DCU, DCU (Comics)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Gen, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-08
Updated: 2015-12-08
Packaged: 2018-05-05 17:33:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,950
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5384330
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tabithian/pseuds/Tabithian
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Whoever said 'war is hell' had a hell of a way with understatements because that barely begins to cover things.</p>
            </blockquote>





	An Impossible Thing

**Author's Note:**

> Sparkly-key asked for Jason and Tim, with the letter T (an obscure AU).
> 
> I'm not really sure how obscure this is, but how about a (vaguely) [Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0346156/) AU? IDK, this got away from me a bit.

Jason's been with the Legion for a year before they take up a contract that lands them in an active combat zone. They'll be flying support for some air group made up of volunteers under a general by the name of Chennault, Jason doesn't have all the particulars down, really.

He's been through the same vigorous training as any of the seasoned pilots on the active duty roster. Training more intensive than anything the military would have put him through before sending him off to fight for his country because Bruce, and by extension Dick, are paranoid bastards.

Jason doesn't know if it's nerves or something else that has him taking a walk down to the hangar the Legion's been assigned. 

He's never flown combat before, and he knows he's not the only one feeling unsettled. A lot of the rookies like him had been full of bravado, claiming they'd make Ace in the blink of an eye, like it's so damn easy. 

A few were writing out letters home to the ones who still had families, loved one waiting on them there. 

Then there were the ones like Jason, too restless to sit down to a hand of cards and loud-mouthed bullshit, no one to write a letter to who wasn't already here. Finding a little patch of quiet to think or taking a walk around the small base. 

The air's different here, different kind of pollution to pull into his lungs, seep into his body. The food they sell out of little booths and carts and stands in the city outside the base is different too, spices that tickle his nose and confuse his taste buds. 

Bruce made sure they all know basic phrases, carry the local currency on them when they leave the base.

A far cry from the crowded, dirty streets Jason grew up in. So different from the sights and sounds of Gotham that it's disorienting, surreal, only thing coming close to familiar is the base. Cookie cutter buildings and layout.

He doesn't realize he isn't alone until there's a soft scuff, quiet little shuffling over by one of the planes.

Jason's hand drops to where his sidearm should be, pulse kicking up, but like an idiot he'd thought they were safe here. No need to go around armed to the teeth to check on his plane.

“Who's there?” Jason calls, knowing he's being stupid and moving closer anyway. 

The faint shuffling stops, Jason rounding the nose of one of the fighters to see a slight figure crouched down by the rear landing gear. Damn near impossible to see with the way whoever it is has managed to wedge themselves into the shadows there, and if Jason wasn't looking for something like that, out of the ordinary, he might have missed it.

Small, tiny, really. When the figure moves, there's a slight ringing sound, noises Jason's come to associate with the ground crews. With Ted's people, engineers and madmen (and women), khaki coveralls and work belts laden down with all manner of tools and gadgets.

“You want to come out of there?”

Jason keeps his voice low, going for non-threatening, and a moment later he sees a small figure shift, edging away from the plane. 

The lighting in the hangar isn't the greatest, doesn't let Jason pick out details, but he can see well enough to know he's dealing with a kid. 

“Hey,” Jason says.

The kid tilts his head to the side, and takes one slow step back that has him moving through a beam of moonlight coming in through one of the hangar windows high up. Enough to give Jason a glimpse of pale skin and wide blue eyes. 

One of the new recruits, Jason remembers. 

The one Ted had snatched up after Barbara leaked the kid's file to him before Bruce got hold of it. Claimed him for his engineering corps, and Bruce knew better than to interfere when he found out what Barbara had done.

Jason's eyes narrow because the kid's not supposed to be here. One of the ones suspected of faking his papers to sign on younger than he really is, meant to stay at Legion headquarters in Gotham. But there had been that rash of food poisoning before they were supposed to ship out that had landed damn near a quarter of the Legion's forces in medical, Ted being one of them.

Not much choice after that, really, other than to send whoever was capable and hope for the best.

“Couldn't sleep?” Jason asks.

The kid shifts, nervous, eyes going back to the plane he was crouched under.

“Something like that,” he says, soft, quiet. 

Jason snorts, watching the kid who just looks back, and isn't this a odd little scene.

He's heard about this from a few of the veterans, Bruce, Dick. 

Ground crew who go stay up late the night before a mission going over the plane that are going out the next day, some kind of ritual with them. 

“How's she look?”

The kid's smile turns self-conscious a he rests a hand on the Warhawk's fuselage, and shrugs. “As ready as she'll ever be.”

Sounds about right for all of them.

********

The thing about being part of Bruce's Flying Legion is that it's not that much different from being in the actual military, to hear some of the pilots talk. 

A whole hell of a lot of hurry up and wait, and then just _wait_.

With a group like theirs, Bruce can usually afford to be selective about the contracts the Legion takes, doesn't commit to anything he doesn't like the look of, no matter how much pressure he gets otherwise.

Only thing is, the moment things turn sour, he has to compromise to keep the Legion safe, or as safe as he can, given his options.

After Pearl Harbor, the options narrow down real fast.

Bruce gets the choice of letting the military disband the Legion, drafting any and all able-bodied personnel to aid the war effort, or contracting them out for a regular tour of duty on top of the original contract that had them working with the Flying Tigers.

Neither one is ideal, but Bruce accepting the second contract is the only way Bruce has some semblance of control with regards to the Legion and the people under his command.

It works, for a time. 

But then there are setbacks after setbacks, rations and supplies that were agreed upon as part of the Legion's contract that never arrive, miles of red-tape to wade through to requisition more. 

And then three weeks after they reach the base they'll be operating out of for the foreseeable future,they lose half a squadron to bad intel and miscommunication.

Bruce is livid.

He'd stayed to watch the last plane limp its way home, peppered with bullet holes and shrapnel, pilot half gone to blood loss, and then swept off to find out who fucked up, Dick fast on his heels 

Everyone wants the infamous Sky Captain and his Flying Legion, and none of them give a good goddamn how many of them die because they're just mercenaries at the heart of it, aren't they.

It's well past midnight and Bruce and Dick still aren't back, and that leaves Jason to ride herd on a bunch of spooked Legionnaires. 

Former military pilots make up the core of the Legion, but most of them didn't see active combat until they joined the Legion. The few bright hopefuls or other unlikely candidates like Jason filling out the ranks never expected to join a goddamned war, see their comrades in arms shot down. Had never really expected to find themselves in this kind of situation.

“Hey.”

Jason looks over to see the kid holding out a mug of coffee.

There's this dark line of soot along the bridge of his nose, angry red marks on his arm that look about right for someone climbing all over severely damaged fighters trying to salvage what he could.

The kid shrugs, giving Jason that crooked little smile of his.

Tired, wan, and Jason doesn't envy him or any of the ground crew their jobs right now.

Hosing blood and God only knows what out of the planes that made their way back to base before getting down to the job of seeing what could be saved, cannibalized, to keep the other planes combat ready.

Jason takes the mug, settling himself a little more comfortably on the supply crate he's sitting on.

There's a broken Warhawk in front of him, bubble canopy long gone, wing half torn off even before the ground crews started in on her.

Her sisters are arrayed around here in neat lines and varying states of damage, and Jason feels - 

He doesn't know how he feels, other than hollow and wring out. Aching for the people they lost today, the ones they're bound to lose before their contracts are up.

“You look like shit,” Jason says, and the kid snorts a laugh, this quiet little huff.

“Look who's talking,” he says, easing himself up onto the crate next to Jason.

He moves like someone older than he is, tired and sore after a goddamned long, heartbreaking day, and he'll have to do it all over again in a few short hours.

“Never got your name,” Jason says, taking a sip of his coffee. 

Swill, really, given it's military rations, but there's some caffeine to be found there, little burst of energy that will keep him going long enough to hand things back over to Bruce and Dick.

He wishes Barbara was here, but Bruce needed someone he trusted at Legion headquarters in Gotham, needed Barbara and Steph and Cass there in case someone decided to pull a fast one on them. 

The kid smiles, little baffled as he looks at Jason. “Tim,” he answers, “Tim Drake.”

It takes a moment, Jason's tired mind not really registering the words, and then he's staring at the kid.

Heir to some pretty important people back in Gotham, company that gave Wayne Enterprises stiff competition.

Tim's looking back at him like he's waiting for a comment, a question.

Things like why the hell someone like him is here, slumming with the outcasts and misfits that make up the infamous Sky Captain's Flying Legion, but.  
Jason's seen Tim around base in between missions.

He deals with the kind of casual insanity the Legion draws in like it's no big deal. He hasn't run screaming from whatever the hell Ted and that idiot Booster get up to in Ted's workshop with whatever crazy new invention Ted comes up with.

Jason's Jason's seen him running errands for Ted, looking like he's gone without sleep for too damn long, arms full of folders and random bits of equipment. Grabbing an extra tray of food in the mess hall, carefully balancing coffee mugs filled to the brim.

Seen him with paint smeared on his face, sleeves of his coveralls rolled up as he and the ground crews painted the shark faced insignias on the Legion's Warhawks with Chennault's blessing.

And then there was today, watching the kid working with Ted to organize the ground crew into teams, triaging the planes as clearly as the ambulance crew were the pilots.

Seeing him now, tired, ground down but not beaten.

Finding a place for himself here with the outcasts and misfits and not holding back to do it.

“Nice to meet you, Tim,” Jason says, and it's only a little mocking, and even then mostly at himself.

Tim smiles, small and crooked, and somehow, somehow, Jason thinks they might just make it through this if they have more people like him.

**Author's Note:**

> This went through so many incarnations before it turned into this, I can't even tell you guys, okay.
> 
>  
> 
> Things not included here are: 
> 
> Dick being from a flying circus and a family of wingwalkers. (Also giving everyone heart attacks by trying that shit on the Warhawks in a dire noodle incident, which, no, Dick. NO.)
> 
> Tim lying on his application papers to join up with the Flying Legion and Bruce totally knowing and turning a blind eye anyway because reasons.
> 
> Bruce and Clark having a ~complicated relationship a la Joe and Polly in the movie, only less with the POW situation.
> 
> Angst-free shenanigans that don't include the Legion being dragged into a war because I am a horrible human being and come on, the movie was set a few years before WWII started, alternate timeline be damned.


End file.
